IAPs explained

In truth, the building phase feels too random, formless, and limited for its own good. You're only given a small range of pieces, and your raft invariably ends up frustratingly lop-sided, rather than the carefully constructed death trap you envisaged.

Raft of problems

This has a knock-on effect for the attacks themselves, which feel like frantic screen-scrub-a-thons rather than a measured defence of a (relatively) static position.

It's also a struggle to squeeze everything in on an iPhone (at least, anything pre-iPhone 6), requiring much pinching to zoom in and out.

This places additional strain on the swipe-to-direct controls, with your ninja never bright enough to realise the attacking threat in the adjacent square.

Getting overrun and losing a level, meanwhile, leads to an irritating mini-game, whereby you must uncover your lost raft pieces in a random game of battleship. You won't do it in one turn, which means you'll opt to watch a video to earn five more tries several times.

There's a good idea for a game here. Mixing Galcon-style simplified strategy with tower defence and dungeon building? I'd play that.

I just don't think Ninja Raft is quite the game that successfully realises those ideas.